In a magnetic tape recorder which may store and reproduce information by helical scanning, it is common to provide a cylinder, having a rotary head, inclining to a horizontal reference plane (for example, a top surface of a chassis) which is perpendicular to rotational axes of tape reels. When such a cylinder is utilized, a pair of tape pulling-out means are required to pull out a tape from a tape cassette and to wind the tape around the cylinder for a predetermined angle.
In this connection, it has be known that when a tape which is transferred keeping the tape surface orthogonal to a reference plane and keeping the tape edge parallel to the reference plane is contacted with a cylinder surface which is inclined to said reference plane, the orientation of the surfaces and edges of said tape with respect to the reference plane are varied.
There is a known tape pulling-out means which has two guide pins, one is incling and the other is oriented orthogonal to a reference plane, which are mounted on a carrier movable between a home position adjacent to a tape reel and a pulled out position or a loading position adjacent to a cylinder. More particularly, the inclining pins may change the orientation of the surfaces and edges of said tape with respect to the reference plane upstream and downstream of said cylinder so that tape surfaces which are orthogonal to said reference plane are changed into nonorthogonal (upstream) or vice versa (downstream) and that tape edges which are parallel to the reference plane are changed into nonparallel (upstream) or vice versa (downstream). When the pulling-out means are moved, however, the inclining guide pins are contacted with the tape surface and a force to move the tape in the direction of its width is generated. This force may cause a shift of the tape and movement of the tape away from the cylinder which results failure of pulling-out of the tape.
A tape pulling-out means having a pulurality of inclining pins is disclosed in Japanese Unexamined Patent Application, Gazette No. 60-253053. The use of a plurality of inclining pins necessitates accurate adjustment of relative inclination between the pins and the associated cylinder in manufacturing and installation. In order to reduce the troublesome adjustment of the relative inclination, it is proposed, in this reference, to form two inclining pins in one block.
However, the tape pulling-out means having one or more inclining pins has the defect that it requires accurate installation and positioning at their pulled out position, since inaccuracy in installation or positioning may result in inaccuracy in the winding angle of the tape on the inclining pin, which in turn results in inaccuracy of the angle between the tape surfaces and a reference plane and inaccuracy of the distance between the tape edges and the reference plane. This problem cannot been solved even if a guide block having one or more inclining pins is fixedly diposed with respect to a cylinder as a stationary guide, since inaccuracy of the position of the pulling out pin may result in inaccuracy of the winding angle of the tape on said inclining pin.